Flower Bud
by xLilly White
Summary: She just wanted him to notice her. He just wanted... a flower? AeriSeph :oneshot:


**a&n: **_Ok, everyone knows they come up with odd things when they decide they're bored, and nothing's on TV, the PS2 is stuck on a stupid FMV and there's that tempting little keyboard trying to draw you in and you can hear Jenova's faint voice whispering 'get my son laid with aeris! NOW!' So, well... here's an AeriSeph for you! Hope someone enjoys it..._  
_Beware! Impossibly inhuman mush ahead!_**  
EDIT: **_I haven't even said something about the amazing authoress who inspired this- Lady Sanzennine... who, of course, knows nothing of my petty existence. :) Cheerio to all who reviewed! –hugs-_

* * *

• f l o w e r b u d •

I wonder if you ever knew…

The first time I saw you was the first time I had ever taken a foot out of Midgar.

I can't exactly go and say I died before the_ beautiful _sights. There were great whiffs of wind trying to knock me out, for one- and the sky was grey and cold just like it is in the mornings when all you want to do is stay warm and cozy in bed. When you say 'outdoors', you might imagine fields of bright green, flower studded grass, perhaps even a wide expanse of deep blue sky streaked with white and soft shades of gray.

But it seemed the outdoors were shyer than I'd thought. They hid the natural beauty that I'd been expecting under cold, hard earth and bristly grass, got lost somewhere behind the twisting rain clouds above that never ceased to darken and cast spells of foreboding over the land. Some wretched soul had even erected large banners with bright neon lettering spelling out "Beware of Monsters!" so that, everywhere you went, flashing warnings followed your every step.

Sure, if I would've gone out and seen the outer world like _that_- in all its brown, rotting, ever-dying splendor, I might've shrugged and told myself that I wasn't missing much.

I might've turned on my heel and went straight back into the gaping gates of that even uglier city.

I might've continued my pointless existence of walking up and down the same old roads, the same old dusty paths, trying to drag smiles out of people with my little homegrown trinkets of colour- the flowers I always carried around with me in that little basket.

But, the thing is, in the midst of all that death and dark emptiness that nature offered to my eyes- I saw something else. Something…someone… (were you what the banners actually warned us about?) …that couldn't just be ignored.

I guess it's because you stood out so much. I remember.

Your hair was at waist length, rippling slowly like threads of molten silver, glittering in the cold light like silver scales of a serpent.

Your eyes were feline. Cypress green yet at the same time as infinitely blue as the skies that hid behind those tormented clouds. Beautiful yet enchanting, crude and harsh yet so strangely pained that I felt like crying.

Your trenchcoat seemed to absorb any of the light aura that you seemed to emanate. It flapped around you in the winds, slapping at your well-toned legs, curling around your arms and contrasting harshly with the bleak horizon.

I don't know what in the name of Crisis we were doing out there. Both of us.

Just standing, I guess.

Just wandering about.

Trying to get out of the city. Trying to get out of the permanent cage of our minds.

I could easily answer for myself, but I'm scared to admit that I could almost as easily answer for you, too. I don't know why I feel so…related to your feelings. However lame that may sound. Sometimes I just know what you're going to say, I just know what you're thinking, and how you're going to take the problem on.

And sometimes, I totally don't.

I remember, I was in my pink dress. Damn pink. It looked like a taboo to be wearing such vivid colour in such stark atmosphere. I still don't get why you didn't avert your eyes as soon as you set them on me. Too much pink would certainly make your eyes bleed.

(…yet, maybe that's because it wasn't my dress you were looking at.)

I had my hair back in a sloppy ponytail, and there were lanky strands of it blowing against my face. I remember feeling so dull and mousey next to you- with your sparkling cat eyes and lustrous hair, while my own hair was just plain brown and my eyes didn't shimmer with such intensity, such… ? _(Beauty... Pain... Blaze... Hate... Egoism.)_ People say my eyes are amazing- a mark of the Planet's gift, whatever that means- but they're doodles next to yours.

Oh, and my feet were still encaged in those horrible boxes that are meant to cosplay as boots. But I don't remember you minding. I don't even think you noticed. So, well, I guess I don't mind either.

I had forgotten my jacket. The wind was blowing, blowing hard, cutting right through to my bone, and I had forgotten my jacket. I remember fretting over the tiny existences of the colourful inhabitants of my basket, and when a few of them got haplessly beheaded, I remember sighing. That's all. A sweet, simple sigh, though I knew that in other circumstances I would've shed a tear for each flower that died. Don't ask me why.

That's just how I am. I wonder sometimes, too.

You looked over at me. You almost crushed me beneath that suffocating gaze, when your eyes caught my own, I thought I'd melt and die, and slip away into nothingness, right then and there. So much pain. So, so much of it.

I wonder why other people don't notice it. Maybe it's just because everyone feels a little sad, remorseful, when they stand before such an ugly, barren landscape, and think 'Hey, this is where I live!' and also think 'I'm gonna die here, too!' and maybe even think 'Damn…I'm gonna die, and I've never even felt fresh green grass, or inhaled the sweet salty ocean air, or seen the sky when the sun has chased away the torment.'

Maybe everyone feels that way, and maybe you were no exception.

Maybe you were just pained for the Planet.

…Maybe I should stop wishing things all the time.

You had heard me sigh. Your eyes flicked down to the basket of flowers, and then back up again.

For a very long time, you just stared at me. But your eyes didn't quite catch mine. Like they were dwindling on the corner of my eye or something.

For a very long time, I just stared at you. But, I was scared to _really_ look at you. Like, looking at you would shatter the beauty of the mirage, make it dissipate. If that makes any sense.

I thought the wind would be the only one speaking. But then you fidgeted. Slightly. You turned your head a little. A few strands of silver hair caught the wind and danced around your face.

_Distractions. Argh!._ I couldn't stop staring. I must've looked such a fool.

You didn't seem to mind. You just kept looking at that little space next to my eye, and then you spoke.

You _spoke_.

Something insignificant, not very interesting, either. But it was the first time I heard your voice. So screw whatever it turned out that you said. You _spoke_ to me.

Your voice tumbled out like silk ribbons of deep, dark emotion, and it was so…so lulling to the ears, I think I just continued to stare at you like an idiot.

And I think you just continued to not mind.

I think you waited a little for me to do something.

I just gawped at you. I couldn't help it.

What…response? You mean _talk back _to you? Oops. I guess not.

You gave me this long, mildly curious stare.

And then you walked up to me-

-and brushed straight past me.

Close. Real close. Like, I could smell that musty, leathery scent wafting out of your trenchcoat. Like, an unruly strand of that silver hair actually touched my cheek, as softly as a tickle but enough to knock me right over. I could smell you, could feel your body heat far too close, could suddenly see all these minute details- like the shadows dipping over the curves of your face, the way your pale white eyelashes hooded your glittering eyes like little silver halos, and I could wish forever that the blush that crept over my cheeks had equally stolen over yours.

Heh. Indeed. I could wish my life away, if I wanted.

I guess we all could.

I remember feeling my shoulder sail across your hard chest, and then there was this warm, tingling patch on my bare skin, that grew cold when you moved away and the wind slapped ruthlessly against it.

But then, something broke the spell. Your grey, glinting pauldron cut almost painfully against that same bare skin on my shoulder. Like some (stupid, stupid) reminder. Like you wanted me to know that, yes, I could dream on, yes, the pauldrons _were_ a mark of your _General_ status in the _army_, and hell no were you gonna take them off.

Had I been wishing that? Hn. Maybe. Maybe not.

But, the second you had gone past me and were heading back to the gates of Midgar, I knew that I was cold. And I also knew that I'd want another of those fleeting moments of warmth. If you could spare me one again, that is. Please…?

I spun around to watch you walking back into the city, and then something hit me. Like the way those godawful Blue Dragons headbutt you right in that precise little spot you know you're going to double over and wail in pain for hours on end. As if Ifrit had summoned up his enormous ball of flames, and then Oh Whoops!, missed the enemy, and chucked it at you instead.

There was all this space around me. You could've easily run off to another gate and entered Midgar. You could've easily avoided me, walked around me or something. You could've just as easily ignored that I even existed and walked straight back into the city without even a glance in my direction.

But, my point is: you didn't ignore me. You didn't avoid me at all.

Why…?

Perhaps that's why, in a last-minute-panic frenzy, I called out to you. I thought that your name sounded so weird in my mouth- as if I didn't know how to say it properly, since you're meant to be a Walking Legend and, well, people don't screw a Legend's name. It's a fact- they just don't.

I though that you had stopped and turned just to cut me into little pieces with that oversized sword of yours for calling you something that vaguely sounded like "Seffroff", but you just stood there. Not quite looking at me, not quite expectantly. Actually, I was scared that a thought similar to 'I am going to commit huge gory homicide if she doesn't open her godamn mouth in the next 3 seconds' was crossing through your mind, and I suddenly found myself wondering why I had wanted you to stop.

Hm… maybe it was because I wanted to goggle at your eyes a bit longer. Maybe it was because I just wanted you to _notice_ me for a little longer. Just to look at me. Just a little bit longer.

But that would've been unfair to you. I just stood there for a frozen second in time, and there seemed to be some wisp of _something_- some tingle of electricity sizzling between our gazes.

That's when you looked at me. Your eyes shifted, just ever so slightly, and then there was a _connection_. I can't explain it. It was just, so beautiful, so ugly, whole yet in tiny scattered pieces, blue, turquoise, green- just, just _there_.

And then, I don't know why.

I picked a flower out of my basket

And offered it to you.

_You picked your heart out of its icy cocoon_

_And offered it to me_.

And then, finally, sweetly, devastatingly…

I spoke, to you.

"Flower…?"

**xxx**


End file.
